Friday, 27 February 2015

Mormonism is a paradigm shift of Christianity

I want to articulate here something about Mormonism that is almost always missed by almost everyone - including Mormons.

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Mormonism represents nothing less than, nothing other than, a paradigm shift of Christianity.

It is Christian and it is new; Mormonism 'saves the appearances' of Christianity (i.e. it is Christian) while underpinning them with an utterly different by systematic metaphysics.

Mormonism is an utterly novel way of being a Christian. It is about as different-yet-coherent way of being a full Christian as it is possible for the mind of Man to conceive.

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Thus Mormonism amounts to a re-explanation of everything in Christianity that needs to be explained; while leaving unchanged that which makes Christianity Christian.

Core, essential Christian belief is unchanged; but underpinned by a qualitatively-different theoretical structure.

Mormonism is not a melange nor a bricolage of earlier beliefs and practices - neither is it an evolutionary development of earlier Christianity; it is a creative re-synthesis of Christianity.

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I think the systematic, metaphysical, structural aspects of Mormonism have been grossly underestimated - indeed there has been near-zero engagement with these matters at the level of philosophical discourse, or in terms of the history of ideas and the history of civilizations.

One may legitimately be amazed by, inspired by, or appalled by the sheer radicalism of Mormon re-conceptualization - but it is simply an error of ignorance or prejudice to fail to appreciate the truly remarkable scope and thoroughness of Mormonism as an intellectual achievement.